STONY BROOK COMMUNITY CHURCH

36 HADLEY STREET

SOUTH HADLEY, MA 01075

(413) 535-2351

www.stonybrookchurch.org

Dr. Daniel Brown, Pastor

September 17, 2006

CATCHING THE WAVE

Acts 27 and 28

Acts chapters 27 and 28 tell a gripping story. It’s one of the most interesting, most vivid narratives, I think, in the whole Bible. It is the story of how Paul, now a prisoner, has been put on board a ship that is headed towards Rome. He is under guard by a Roman centurion and he has some of his companions with him. The ship makes several stops along the Mediterranean coast, and then finally as we begin to read, the ship is setting off from the southern coast of the island of Crete.

Acts 27:13-44: “When a gentle south wind began to blow, they thought they had obtained what they wanted; so they weighed anchor and sailed along the shore of Crete. Before very long a wind of hurricane force, called the ‘northeaster,’ swept down from the island. The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along. As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboats secure. When the men had hoisted it aboard, they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Fearing that they would be run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along. We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. On the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.

“After the men had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said, ‘Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, “Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.” So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.’

“On the fourteenth night we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea, when about midnight the sailors sensed that they were approaching land. They took soundings and found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found it was ninety feet deep. Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea, pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow. Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, ‘Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.’ So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it fall away.

“Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. ‘For the last fourteen days,’ he said, ‘you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food--you haven’t eaten anything. Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.’ After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. Altogether there were 276 of us on board. When they had eaten as much as they wanted they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.

“When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time, untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.

“The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest were to get there on planks or on pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land in safety.”

We have an amazing storm story here in the book of Acts. And in some ways all storm stories are similar. These men on a small ship in the Mediterranean are facing the same sort of struggle that any group of sailors or passengers on a ship in a storm would face: the terrible fear that at any point the ship will capsize; the fear of being driven before the storm and absolutely powerless to do anything.

So why do we tell storm stories? We tell storm stories because they describe an elemental experience in which human beings are up against natural forces. It brings out who they really are; it brings out the courage and it brings out the cowardice; it brings out the good and it brings out the bad. So storm stories are in many ways very much alike.

But there is something special about this storm story in Acts and that is the behavior of Paul. Paul, aboard this ship with 276 other people; Paul, as he is sailing through this storm, presumably scared, facing the same sort of emotion that the other people are. But listen to what he says in Acts 27: 21-26: “After the men had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said, ‘Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.”

Then again in Acts 27:33: “Just before dawn Paul urged them to eat. ‘For the last fourteen days,’ he said, ‘you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.’”

The strangest thing about this story is Paul’s absolute confidence. He is in the middle of the same storm as all the others on the ship and he has this absolute confidence that, not only is he going to survive, but everybody else on the ship is going to survive. Where on earth does this confidence come from? How is it that Paul, in the middle of this storm on the Mediterranean in this tiny ship without any reasonable hope that they will survive, without any reasonable confidence at all, can respond in this way? And actually it’s not a hard question to answer; it’s an easy question to answer because Paul has a singular confidence that God wants him in Rome. And if God wants him in Rome, nothing is going to stop him from getting to Rome. He has been reminded of this over the last few events of his life. He is reminded of it again by an angel on the ship who appears to him. So he has this confidence: God wants him in Rome and nothing is going to stop him from getting to Rome.

That’s great, but what are we supposed to do with it? How do we apply this for ourselves? I knew a missionary in Pakistan who had this same sort of confidence. Every time he got on a bus, so I was told—and buses in Pakistan are very dangerous. Bus drivers in Pakistan like to have a bit of fun as they’re driving; they play chicken with drivers of trucks and other buses on the highways. About half of them at least are on hashish at any given time. So getting on a bus in Pakistan is not exactly a safe thing. But this missionary, whenever he got on a bus, would announce to all the other passengers, “You’re absolutely safe because I’m on this bus. Since I’m on this bus, God is going to take care of me, and he’ll take care of you, too.” This is great, so should we all do this—whenever we get on a bus or a train or a plane, we get up and say, “Don’t worry, this plane won’t be high-jacked, because I’m on it.” That would be a great application, but would it work? And what do you say to the people for whom it hasn’t worked? What do you say to the widow of the missionary who was in the tragic car accident? What do you say to the person for whom this wonderful sense of confidence didn’t work out? Just six years later, Paul himself is going to be martyred in Rome. And in 64 AD, three years later, the Apostle Peter will be crucified—church tradition says he was crucified up side down in Rome. What happened with them? What is the point? What are we supposed to learn from Paul’s confidence in the midst of this storm?

There’s another question we can also ask because this is the last part of the book of Acts. Acts will tell a little about Paul’s preaching in Rome and then the story of Acts will come to an end. This is the end point, and this is the time then to look back through the book and ask, what has been the point of the whole thing? When you come to the end of book it’s natural to reflect a bit and ask, “What was this book really about and what have I learned?”

So let’s reflect for a minute--where did Acts begin? It began with eleven Jewish men outside Jerusalem with Jesus. Jesus was teaching them, and he said, “You will be my witnesses.” (Acts 1:8) Then these eleven Jewish men witnessed Jesus ascending into heaven and they were alone. That’s how the book began. Thirty years later where are we? Thirty years later we find Paul in Rome, preaching away. He’s under house arrest but he continues to preach, and what has happened in the meantime? In thirty years we have gone from eleven followers of Jesus with him to literally hundreds of churches throughout the Mediterranean world. There are churches in every major city around the Mediterranean Sea in thirty years. This represents thousands of believers in Jesus. We now have a network of Christians and missionaries crisscrossing the Mediterranean world, going everywhere spreading this message. In thirty years we’ve had this birth of a vibrant new religious movement that is becoming such a major threat to the Roman Empire that Nero, beginning in 64 AD will inaugurate a terrible persecution of Christians in Rome, a persecution in which he uses Christians as human torches in his garden parties. This change has taken place in a remarkably short time and the book of Acts has told us the story of how it happened.

One of the common reactions that Christians have when we read through Acts, and I’m sure some of you have had it as we’ve been reading through in the past few months, is that we say, “Why can’t we be more like them? Look at the amazing things that were happening in that church. Why can’t we experience miracles the way they did?” Sometimes we may experience a miracle, but somehow we don’t feel as if it’s really at the same rate or with the same excitement. Why can’t we pray the way they prayed? Why can’t we preach the way they preached? I wish that every Sunday—why can’t I preach like Peter preached? If only people were pouring into the Kingdom the way people were pouring into the Kingdom then. Why can’t we experience growth the way they did? So we come away from Acts feeling rather discouraged. We come away thinking, in comparison, what are we and why isn’t the church now as vibrant as it seemed to be then? We feel as if we don’t quite measure up in some way. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of godly discontent—feeling as if your life or your church isn’t quite what it might be. But I can say with confidence and I hope to show it to you, that that is not the point of Acts. The point of Acts is not for you to read through it and think, “My, what great Christians they were and I just don’t measure up. What can I do to be more like them?” That’s not the point of Acts.

But then, what is the point ?

Throughout the book, Luke has left us clues about what he’s up to and what his purpose is. These clues are really short statements with which he sums up the different sections of Acts.

Acts 6:7—“So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” That is his first summary statement.

Acts 9:31—“Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.”

Acts12:24—“But the word of God continued to increase and spread.”

Acts 16:5—“So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.”

Acts 19:20—“In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”

The theme so far is quite easy to catch—growth, strength, encouragement. The church grows, it’s strengthened as it grows and it is encouraged as it grows. This happens throughout the book. So as we tour through the book of Acts, we can ask the question, “What makes this happen? Who makes it happen?”

What is it that causes this inexorable growing of the church as we march through the book of Acts? We can say, maybe it’s Peter, this great preacher in Acts. Halfway through he disappears; we don’t hear anything more about him. It’s not Peter. What about Paul, perhaps it’s Paul. Is it Paul that really makes this happen? Well, he isn’t there at the beginning, and how is it that Paul comes into the business of preaching at all? No one does it; it’s the light of God falling on him on the road to Damascus. So who is that’s making it happen all the way through? We know the answer to that—it’s God who is making it happen. This is the work of God that is going on inexorably that these people are caught up in all through the book of Acts. None of them are doing it; it’s God that’s doing it and they just happen to be caught in the flow. They just happen to be caught in this wave of God’s Spirit. Then we come to the end of the book of Acts, and Luke has one final summary statement, the last verse in Acts. Paul is now in Rome, preaching under house arrest. Acts 28:31 says—“Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you know what the final words in the book of Acts in the Greek are—“without hindrance.” That is the key to this final summary phrase—this is the theme of the book of Acts: that nothing will hinder the work of God. God wants something to be done, then it will be done. Nothing will be able to get in its way, and we’ve seen that story over and over again.

Persecution in Jerusalem cannot hinder the word of God. What does it do? It spreads out the believers into the world where other people need to hear.

The Roman Empire with all its bureaucracy and power and armies cannot hinder the word of God. It will go on inexorably without anyone being able to stop it.

Nothing will be able to hinder the work of God. And then we come to Acts 27 and 28, and this terrible storm in which Paul is caught up, and we discover that this is the perfect way to end the book. A storm, a shipwreck, the forces of nature, the wind, the waves—are those going to be able to stop the work of God? It looks that way. Right in the middle of it, it looks like it to those sailors. It looks like it to Luke who is narrating the story. But here is the image that Luke leaves us with at the end of the book. It is a picture that helps us to think about the whole book of Acts because it’s an image of a storm itself blowing Paul in that little ship exactly in the direction that God wants it to go. They don’t know that until they’re cast aground on Malta. They don’t know that, but that is exactly what God is doing.

So here is an image to help us think about the book of Acts. At the beginning of Acts there is a spiritual earthquake in Jerusalem—Pentecost, the coming down of the Holy Spirit. This spiritual earthquake takes place and what does an earthquake do in the right circumstances? If it’s in the ocean, it creates a tsunami. This spiritual earthquake, this tsunami spreads out from Jerusalem throughout the book of Acts in great waves of the Spirit going out, engulfing Judea and Samaria. Then it moves on to Antioch, spreads into Asia Minor, to Macedonia, finally washing Paul up into Rome. These were great waves God’s spirit spreading out from Jerusalem and engulfing everything in their way. The story of the storm is the perfect ending to the book of Acts because it captures what has been happening all through the book. The individuals in the book—Peter, Stephen the martyr, Philip who converts the Ethiopian eunuch, Barnabas the companion of Paul, and then Paul himself and his companions—are just riding the waves of God’s Spirit as it pushes them farther and farther and deeper and deeper into His purposes. They get battered along the way; it isn’t an easy thing to ride this wave. They get battered, and Stephen gets killed, but nothing can stop the word of God from going forth. Nothing will be able to hinder the word of God from going forth and from spreading.

So the lesson of Acts isn’t how wonderful the early church was. There were some wonderful things about the early church, but there were some pretty bad things as well. We need to read in the Epistles to understand how bad things sometimes got. But Acts is not about that—Acts is about the power of God. It’s about how God is at work in doing His will, in carrying out His purposes, and in building the church. And it’s about people who are carried along by that power, who allow themselves to ride the wave.

The good news here—or the bad news depending on where you stand—is that the power hasn’t changed. The power of God has not changed. The work that God started at Pentecost in Jerusalem in those waves of the Spirit is still moving forward just as inexorably. In fact if you look around the world today, what is happening in the church is no less encouraging if we could see the big picture than the book of Acts is. Luke is able to step back and give us the big picture, but if you were on the deck of that ship in the middle of the storm, it might not have been so encouraging. So if you feel as if you are on the deck in the middle of a storm, or if some of you are feeling as if you are off in a backwater in Asia Minor someplace and have been left aside, that doesn’t change the big picture. The truth is that God’s work is going forward.

So what should we do? What should our position be?

One final picture for you—imagine yourself on a beach or in the ocean at the Cape, on the ocean side. You want the big waves so you’re watching the waves come in and you go out about waist deep. A really big wave comes at you, a huge one. You decide you’re going to stand strong against the wave and nothing will move you. What’s going to happen? You know what’s going to happen—it’s going to sweep you away, you’ll be carried by that wave. You have another choice, especially if you enjoy body surfing. You’re going to jump into that wave and allow it to carry you. You’re going to go with the wave wherever it’s going. These are the choices that God gives us in terms of His work. If you try to stand against it, His work will engulf you anyway eventually, as it did the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire will survive only a few centuries longer. It will be engulfed by the church. In fact people within the Roman Empire will blame the church for having destroyed it when it finally falls apart. In some ways they’re right because the Roman Empire itself cannot stand up against the work of God—this mightiest of empires. And do we think we can? So the choice for us as believers is pretty clear. Either we try to stand still and wade along, thinking the breeze is nice and the waves are gentle. Then a big wave of God’s Spirit comes and we have the choice of allowing ourselves to be carried along by it, to cooperate with it, or to try to stand against it.

This is just a little parable for you in terms of our cooperation with what God wants us to do. We need to figure out what God is doing. If you’re on a campus, you need to figure out what God is doing on this campus. Am I going to try and stand against it or ignore it or am I going to go with it, am I going to cooperate? If you’re part of a church, are you going to just sit on the sidelines or are you going to look for where God’s Spirit is moving and what He wants you involved in and really cooperate with that. In the world, the world of missions, are you going to just sit on the sidelines and watch other people get carried by the wave? Or are you going to get involved, because God’s Spirit and God’s purposes are inexorable. They cannot be hindered, but you could be left aside. You could be left out of it.

There’s another storm story in the scriptures. You’ll remember it perhaps—the story of Jonah. This story of Jonah is in some ways the reverse of the story of Paul. Paul gets on the ship, the storm hits, and he knows that God’s purposes can’t be thwarted, so he just stays on that ship and lets God wash him up in Rome eventually. Jonah tries another strategy. God tells him to go someplace. He says, “I don’t want to. I’ll go the other direction.” What happens to him? He still ends up in the storm and battered by it, ends up in trouble, but he’s not going to be able to escape God’s purposes. It is impossible to escape God’s purposes, but Jonah endures a lot of trouble for trying to run in the other direction. Don’t try to run in the other direction.